Students take a stride against breast cancer
October, 2014
Scores of people from across the Qatar Foundation community joined a group walkathon to raise awareness of breast cancer issues organized by two WCMC-Q student groups.
As part of the international Breast Cancer Awareness Month movement, the Women’s Health Interest Group and Beyond White Walls invited walkers to convene at the entrance to WCMC-Q and join them in a walk around the grounds of Education City to “take a stride against breast cancer.”
The event was organized to remind and encourage women to have regular mammograms and to examine themselves
The event on Monday 27 October also gave attendees the chance to learn more about breast cancer from information booths run by WCMC-Q faculty and Qatar National Cancer Society, and to engage in dialogue with one another to share knowledge about the disease.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, which estimated that approximately 508,000 women around the globe died as a result of the disease in 2011. However, many breast cancers can be successfully treated and studies have shown that following healthy lifestyle habits may reduce the risk of suffering from the disease.
Early detection is vital to improve breast cancer outcomes, so encouraging women to self-examine and to have regular mammograms is extremely important. For these reasons, the WCMC-Q student groups Beyond White Walls and the Women’s Health Interest Group are very keen to encourage dialogue about breast cancer among women in Qatar.
Faculty and staff members also joined in the walk
First-year medical student Sarah Khan, President of the Women’s Health Interest Group, said: “The reason we want to raise awareness about breast cancer issues is quite simply because this approach works - raising awareness saves lives. Early detection and increased awareness play a key role in beating breast cancer.”
Sarah, who co-founded the group with fellow med 1 students Faryal Malick, Fatima Al-Maadid, Sahar Mahadik and Farah Al-Sayyed, added:
“By having the awareness walk, we aimed to encourage more people to take an active role in learning about how this disease can impact them as well as promote the life-saving role they can play in detecting it early on.
“We had a great turnout and I think we managed to educate and encourage a lot of our attendees to learn more about the disease and its impacts.”
For more information about breast cancer and support services in Qatar, visit www.qatarcancersociety.org
